BalancePoint Features

BalancePoint’s advanced capabilities derive from three key sets of integrated features:

• ScanPoint™ agent-less discovery and data collection
• ViewPoint™ performance management and visualization
• GuidePoint™ analysis and modeling for actionable recommendations

ScanPoint™

BalancePoint uses a unique agent-less monitoring technology called ScanPoint™ to perform discovery and data collection from enterprise servers and storage systems. It also collects information from infrastructure software elements including VMware and Oracle and SQL databases. BalancePoint uses this information to generate Akorri's unique workload profiles or "Application Fingerprints™".

• ScanPoint™ Agent-less Collection – Non-intrusive on-line architecture performs discovery and data collection across applications, servers, and storage without the need for software agents.
• ScanPoint™ for VMware – Fully integrated with VirtualCenter for data collection. BalancePoint helps manage server and storage elements that are being used by VMware ESX. See and manage the entire environment from one screen.
• ScanPoint™ for Oracle and MS SQL – Adds database instance, schema, and data type information to BalancePoint, showing how critical data center databases are deployed on server and storage sub-systems. Provides immediate insight helping both storage managers and DBAs troubleshoot and optimize database performance.

ViewPoint™

BalancePoint generates ViewPoint™ Topology views of the relationships between applications and the infrastructure elements that support them. These topology views are generated automatically and visually identify points of contention and performance problems. BalancePoint can generate full ViewPoint Topology maps for VMware, identify exactly how VM guests on VMware ESX Server are mapped to server and storage resources, and how each element is performing. ViewPoint Topologies are also generated for Oracle and SQL databases.

BalancePoint delivers built-in expert analysis for quantifying performance across shared resources. By correlating infrastructure resources with their impact on total application performance, BalancePoint automatically troubleshoots the root-cause of performance contention problems. Building on Akorri's Application Fingerprints™, BalancePoint enables performance-based provisioning and planning to produce actionable recommendations for deploying new resources.

• ViewPoint™ Topology – Direct mapping of how application performance is being delivered by servicing resources. Visualize infrastructure health and alignment to quickly identify the root cause of poor performance.
• ViewPoint™ Performance Alerts – Intelligent warnings on the usage and responsiveness of each application’s infrastructure. Performance-based alerts provide text-based advice leading directly to deeply buried problems.
• ViewPoint™ Reports – An integrated, flexible reporting engine for accessing BalancePoint data for CMDB, asset, capacity, or other ITIL management processes. IT service dashboards and infrastructure scorecards can be sent to your email inbox every day.GuidePoint™

GuidePoint™

GuidePoint™ creates actionable recommendations and analyses based on Akorri’s Cross-Domain Analytics™ and Performance Dynamics Modeling technologies. These mathematically advanced solutions provide intelligent alerting, proactive service management, and actionable recommendations to help with remediation, optimization, and planning.

GuidePoint™ Dynamic Thresholds tracks application Infrastructure Response Time and predicts future performance for each application up to two days in advance. BalancePoint can dynamically adjust thresholds based on models of performance and then alert on unusual application performance behavior. By predictively avoiding application brownouts, BalancePoint automates service level management.

GuidePoint™ Provisioning Analysis helps users analyze and visualize the capability of a disk group or RAID set to provide quality service to an application, factoring in both active performance and capacity used over a period of time. BalancePoint provides predictive reports of when storage resources will run out of either space or performance capacity.

Additionally, GuidePoint KPI’s and other GuidePoint analyses steer and guide optimization efforts by showing how server and storage resources are either under or over utilized. BalancePoint enables users to judge the ability of disk groups, virtual hosts, and other components can service applications if changes are made to capacities or workloads.

• GuidePoint™ Provisioning Analysis – Optimizing recommendations for storage provisioning. Identify your best fit storage options when mounting new volumes or migrating data LUNs to meet application requirements.
• GuidePoint™ Delta-Time and Activity Analysis – Sophisticated computations evaluate application performance over time. Assess unplanned events and validate intentional changes.
• GuidePoint™ Dynamic Thresholds – Dynamic performance thresholds automatically adjust for application cycles and seasonality. You get alerted only when you really want to know.
• GuidePoint™ Key Performance Indicators – Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the business management of IT including Infrastructure Response Time™ and the Akorri Performance Index™. Justify consolidation, upgrades, or virtualization projects.